Numbers in News Articles: Effects of Presence, Errors, and (False) Recall

This experiment ( N = 300) tests the effects of numbers and math errors in online news articles. Several readers struggled to recall and recognize the numbers and math errors in the articles, but there were significant effects of thinking they saw them—Regardless of experimental condition, readers who noticed (or imagined) numbers reported higher content quality, and readers who noticed (or imagined) errors reported lower content and source quality. Findings are discussed through the Heuristic-Systematic Processing Model, and implications for media trust are explored.